Reviews & Ratings for
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (VG) More at IMDbPro »

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36 out of 38 people found the following review useful:
My first foray into GTA and I love it., 19 November 2002
Author: bluethunder35 (bluethunder35@hotmail.com) from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

I never bought GTA3, which dominated the sales charts for a long time (and still does). I felt it wasn't my kind of game. The off-shoot of GTA3, GTA:Vice City was announced and the millions who bought GTA3 were counting the days for its arrival.

As a frequent visitor to IGN.com, all the posters could talk about was this game. I originally planned to buy GTA3 as soon as I finished one of my other games, but after seeing the track listing of licensed songs for Vice City, the 80's theme, and reading a million posts about it, I pre-ordered it and got it on its first day of sale. Although I won't call it the best game I've ever played, it's in my Top 10. Vice City is an outstanding game.

Vice City is about Tommy Vercetti (voiced by Ray Liotta) who has been released from jail after doing 15 years. He is sent by Sonny Forelli to work in 1986 Vice City (Miami). You'll be doing all sorts of illegal activities, such as murder, stealing military equipment and microchips, drug dealing, sniping, and robbery. You'll even blow up buildings for other bosses. Eventually, you too can make Tommy a boss. It's just like The Sopranos. You can even do non-illegal things like drive people around in taxis, save hurt people with an ambulance, and deliver pizza. There's "Fast And The Furious" street racing, dirt bike racing, helicopters, boats, you name it, it can be driven.

You'll meet up with tons of characters who'll pay for your successful missions. which helps you buy property that will allow you to get rich. The game is totally non-linear, so if you don't feel like doing a mission, you could be a taxi driver or just cruise the well-done and huge city that looks just like Miami (I've been there, it's eerily similar). There's so much stuff to do, even doing crazy jumps, rampages (where you do some mass murdering of thugs), or the fabled hidden packages.

The graphics do the job, but the gameplay is what counts. It has a few niggles but doesn't detract. Even if you fail, you'll want to keep trying a mission until you succeed; that's why this game is so good, sooner or later, you'll win the mission. The sound is the best I've ever heard. You'll hear tons of voice clips just by bumping into the denizens of Vice City. The voice acting done by the likes of Liotta, Burt Reynolds, Luis Guzman, William Fichtner, and Dennis Hopper is excellent. The real gem is all the licensed 80's music. There are several radio stations that play all sorts of different hit songs from the era, so you'll get to hear some of your all-time favorites (all listed in the manual). Don't forget the talk radio (I just love DJ Amy). All in all, it delivers a great idea of what people in 2002 think what 1986 was like.

Yes, the game is controversial in nature so it's not for kids, but for adults or teens who do have responsible parents who love and teach their children right and wrong and are active in their lives, this game is indeed the PlayStation 2's defining moment, as Todd Zuniga put it. I'm sure both GTA3 and Vice City are great, but VC is the one to get. The 80's still rule!

27 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
Welcome to Vice City folks!, 9 July 2004
Author: Angel Meiru

Grand Theft Auto Vice City was waited for and well worth it.When I had bought this game I could not put it down. I just put my GTA3 on the shelf for a bit, because I'm not going to finish it right away as I have Vice City. This game has everything in GTA3 and more. You can pick up prostitutes , steal cars , kill people , and smash up cars/people. Now... who wouldn't have fun doing that!?

New features : This has actually come quite a way from GTA3. Instead of looking like the man from Rock Star's other title ''Max Payne'' you have your own look and attire. You're own attitude. Hell, you even have a face and a voice! Much different from GTA3 where you a faceless speechless tool , you will be very angry and arrogant (besides there are cheat codes to help you become other characters too!). There is about 50 different weapons in Grand Theft Auto Vice City.(including knives , bats , golf clubs chain saws , katanas , and glocks , machine guns , and explosives. Nearly 200 vehicles including the rumored motorcycle and helicopter. Also you know when you didn't start the fighting in Grand Theft Auto and the cops still arrested/shot you? Well In Vice City the cops will attack the real villain , and if you help the cops catch the villain you will be awarded with money for good citizen award. This also applies if you are being chased by cops (about 3-4 stars on wanted level), some citizens will go kama-kaze and attack you.

Another new feature that occurs is when you are being attacked by police they will shoot out your tires to make you slow down or crash , and also when having a high wanted level Police will drop down the helicopter from above. Also instead of having to stay at garages and alleys like in Grand Theft Auto 3 , in Vice City you have the ability to buy houses and apartments to stay and save your game at. Seeing as you can go into many buildings in the game , there is many stores and a mall where you can buy weapons such as grenades , machetes , knives , and also you can buy tools such as screwdrivers and hammers.Many other side missions such as Vigilante mode , Paramedic (with the ambulance) , Taxi driver (with the taxi and the zebra taxi) , and Pizza Boy (which IMO is very hard) , and fireman (with the fire truck) are offered in Vice City. Vehicles that include vigilante mode are the police cars , fbi cars , enforcers , boats , and the The Rhino .(the tank)

And of course, you get to re-live the 1980's with energetic music and colourful images.

I recommend this game to all you adults and older teens that have a sense a humor, or those whom CAN ACTUALLY tell fantasy from reality.

26 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
Better than some movies, 26 June 2004
Author: Jdc102 from Southern California

GTA:VC is the best video game I've ever played. Its more like a movie and has some really interesting (and sometimes hilarious) characters. Ray Liotta is PERFECT as Tommy Vercetti, a guy who's so badass, you learn to like the guy. I think GTA III was very good, but Vice City, for me is a masterpiece. The radio stations, the weapons, the cars, the boats, the motorcycles, the graphics, the nostalgia, its awesome. I can't wait for San Andreas. At this point, I don't think Rockstar can go wrong. Some people prefer GTAIII, and people have their own opinions, but I've never gotten bored with Vice City. A

28 out of 32 people found the following review useful:
Easily the best video game ever., 23 July 2004
Author: Patrick White from Omaha

I'm thirty-five and recently married. I hadn't played a video game since the late eighties--in fact, I hadn't even given them a second thought. Then everything changed. I watched my brother-in-law play GTA:VC one afternoon on his PS2. I was transfixed. I was appalled. I was, in a word, hooked. When it came out on XBOX, I bought a used copy at Blockbuster and haven't looked back.

First of all, the gameplay is phenomenal. The fact that you can freely roam the large Vice City map is worth the price of admission by itself.

Second, the voice acting is amazing--especially the commercials. Ray Liotta. Gary Busey. Burt Reynolds. Phillip Michael Thomas. Lee Majors. Robert Davi. Dennis Hopper. Luis Guzman. Fairuza Balk. Jenna Jameson. Danny Trejo. These are just a few of the names that make appearances. The radio material is so well produced, I can drive around all day listening to nothing but VCPR or KCHAT. The radio commercials are witty, sarcastic and spot-on.

Third, the story is great. You start as a nobody, recently released from jail. You finish (if you really ever do finish) as a Tony Montana-esque criminal psychopath.

Fourth--this is probably the most immoral game ever created... and it's beautiful. It's sick, sick, sick! Apart from the usual "waste him" missions, tasks include delivering drugs from an ice-cream van and driving a humvee drunk while avoiding the cops. I mean, one mission has you carving up a guy with a chainsaw! In addition, there are dozens of "rampage" icons throughout the game. When you run into one, you have two minutes to kill a certain amount of people a certain way (e.g. "kill 20 gang members in two minutes with a meat cleaver") It's never boring.

Conclusion: GTA:VC is the sickest, funniest, most engrossing and immersive video game ever made. It looks and plays better on the XBOX, but it's a blast on any platform. Rockstar's next GTA release, San Andreas, has immense shoes to fill.

16 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
The Game, 10 April 2006
Author: Shippmeister from Australia

GTA: VC is nothing short of a masterpiece. The cast, the theme, the play. It all fits so well, the closest a game has come to being a complete life replacement. I had only played this in limited amounts when it first came out and wasn't really hooked, I then bought San Andreas for PS2 and decided to back track to Vice City for PC. Low and behold it contains an aura that San ADreas does not. The soundtrack fits the game like a glove, the map is quiet a lot like Miami and the fashions and vehicles available just made it near perfect. One thing different from San Adnreas is that Tommy Vercetti is a winner, he is respected, whereas Carl in San Andreas is always battling for it for some reason, Tommy just seems to be a tougher character, and his rise and rise throughout the game confirms this.

I guess there is a fault with this game, it came to an end, eventual I suppose, but it did not look open for a sequel, perhaps Rockstar can throw us back to the 70's?, imagine it, GTA: San Francisco

18 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
The cast line-up of all time - "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City", 26 November 2002
Author: dee.reid from United States

"Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" (2002)

***** stars (out of five)

With an all-star voice cast that includes Ray Liotta (Goodfellas, Hannibal), Dennis Hopper (Speed, True Romance), William Fichtner (The Perfect Storm), Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down), Fairuza Balk (The Craft), Luis Guzman (Traffic), Gary Busey (Lethal Weapon), and Danny Trejo (Spy Kids, Con Air), how could this game be anything but a game? "Vice City" has so many elements of a major Hollywood production, that you almost forget that your playing a video game. This is heightened by the fact that there is a movie script floating around Hollywood right now and I'm seriously hoping Liotta gets the lead part.

Ray Liotta plays Tommy Vercetti, an ex-con who has just returned to the streets after doing a fifteen year stint in prison. The family sends him to Vice City, a hell hole that is actually WORSE than Liberty City. How could Vice City be worse than Liberty City you say? Well for one, no one really cares about Vice City. The place is also crawling with drug dealers and corrupt city officials that keep the city properly unsafe for anyone to live.

Anyways, from the start, problems arise for Tommy. A drug deal goes wrong and only quick thinking and some fast driving by his lawyer friend Ken Rosenberg (Fichtner) gets them out alive. As it turns out, this mess leads to missing money, missing drugs and dangerous crime bosses including a corrupt land developer named Avery Arrington (Burt Reynolds) and a rich gangster (Guzman), the latter who Tommy eventually has to deal with. Tommy decides right away that he is going to own this town and so begins his odyssey into Vice City...

"Vice City" is such an amazing improvement over "Grand Theft Auto III" that it is almost impossible to describe it. You basically take Liberty City's worst qualities and multiply them by ten. Everything that was in "Grand Theft Auto III" is here, including the insane jumps, rampages and hidden packages. The missions are a lot harder too. But they are more varied and have a much greater significance in the end.

There are plenty more cars too, but there are boats and helicopters as well. My personal favorite vehicle so far is the Sabre. The helicopters are from what I've seen so far, the only vehicles available that enable flight. Probably my favorite new feature so far, is the fact that with the right amount of money, you can actually buy up real estate. I also forgot to mention that this game is a hell of a lot bloodier than any other previous "Grand Theft Auto" titles.

The leading actors are amazing in this game, especially Liotta as Vercetti. He has a lot of charisma here and it shows in his character. The other voice actors are great as well.

"Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" is so far the most anticipated and best reviewed game to come out for the Playstation 2 this year.

14 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
A must., 6 July 2004
Author: Finntroll from Turku, Finland

This is without doubt the best gangster game made. Everyone who want's to be a gangster without that annooying risk of being incarsonated or killed should stop read right here and go out and by the damn thing instead. Superb voice-overs by Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds and numerous others, awesome soundtrack with every song you either loved or hated from the eighties, graphics that still look good, an intriguing story, henious crimes, fast cars... This is love on a computer screen and my second favourite game ever. The ultra violence has caused somewhat of a stir in America and the general political incorrectness of the game should have you're mouths watering by now. This game is what gaming should be all about; you start it up for a quick play at eight P.M., at four A.M. you realize that you've been sitting by the screen in eight hours and you still aren't sure how to complete the printwork asset.

Go out and buy!

19 out of 26 people found the following review useful:
Took a long time..., 28 February 2003

Author: PlayerSS from North Carolina

This game took a long time to grow on me. I really hated it when it first come out. Then I got it and played it a bit and thought the realism of the game was absolutely amazing. Then I started to play the missions and got wrapped in the story and now I'm hooked. The Main character is different compared to the usual good guys. A very great game with limitless possibilities.

13 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
After playing this game you will agree this is TWICE as good as 3!!, 3 November 2002
Author: Meltdown53098533 (Meltdown53098533@aol.com) from london, ont.

Grand Theft Auto Vice City. I had to wait patiantly for this game, and it was worth the wait. You play as Tommy Vercetti, a crimminal who is looking for the money stolen from his boss, Sonny Forelli. You embark on a journey of fun, violence and treachery as you play through an all new city full of new weapons, missions, vehicles and machines. The missions get tough and there are more places you can enter for fun. You can also fly helicopters, airplanes and ride motar cycles. need I say more??

5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Keeps up the fun, 22 June 2003
Author: Tony (Rirath_com) from USA

(This review refers to the PC port.) This game is a much needed breath of fresh air. It's incredibly fun, and like Grand Theft Auto 3, it's very easy to pick up and play. You can easily play this game for hours on end, but you don't hours to be able to play. From the moment you start, it's seamless to start doing your thing and simply have fun.

The missions are quite fun. They're better than before, cooler, and just plain entertaining. I thought not being the nameless thug would be annoying, but it's better than ever. The story is perfect for a game of this type, and the game's atmosphere is flawless. Don't be surprised if you find a love for 80's music after playing this game.

The only downsides are like GTA3, there's bugs left in that really should have been taken care of. Also, it's rather obvious it's a PS2 port as the game's memory is rather short. You can clearly see a car coming, turn around so it's out of sight, and poof... gone. "Out of sight, out of mind." And like GTA3, after awhile the fun may wear thin and things may get repetitive depending on your tastes.

- Rirath_com

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